Tag Archives: Get Messy Art Journal

I am joining with my fellow Get Messyians In the Season of Adventure. (more about Get Messy Art Journal challenge herehttp://getmessyartjournal.cayleegrey.com/about/) as I was taking care of my Grandmother, and with out wifi for most of the season of Brave I was not able to participate in it as much as I wanted to. But after my incredibly hard April/May I really need to return to more Art in my life. I have missed the creative practice so much. So I am really going to challenge myself and join the ladies who are going to be sharing their art journals from the prompts every Thursday for the season of Adventure.

So for this week we are to share our sensory experience of a place. Which imediately brought to mind the amazing flowering tree at the end of April in Columbus. I don’t know when I have ever seen flowering trees blooms to last for so long. My daily walks with waffle into this gloriously scented and exquisitely painted landscape. Is one of the things that kept me sane during the long and grueling days I spent being the only able bodied and responsible “grown up”. As I spent the month being caregiver for my Grandmother (and her husband) as she recovered from knee replacement surgery.

So I wanted to capture the atmosphere of that place and time, on those long walks with my westie and my Polaroid cameras. I tend to be obsessive detail girl, so I really tried to challenge myself to be more impressionistic. To capture the essentials and the feeling, to be as minimalistic as I could. I am very happy with the result. I wanted to get the the whole spread done for Thursday but I did get the left page finished and hopefully can get the other page with my polaroid photos done tomorrow. But here is my page:

My last I process shot, yes I have paint on my hands so you can tell I was happy: This is my favorite series of Polaroids that I took in Columbus they will,go on the right hand page when it is finished.

I did an overly page of tracing paper to put my journaling on to represent things floating in the air:

For my first spread in my new little (it measures 6 1/2 inches by 6 1/2 inches) get messy art journal I decided to do challenge 2-love and lessons learned. I decided to do it about my relationship with my adopted sister, and what happened to it after she suffered memory loss. This was a really intense spread to do but I am really glad I did it.

Below is what the spread originally looked like. This book is one of those little gift books and all the spreads have text on the left but very diverse and interesting photos on the right. all the photos are also printed in sepiatone which is why I chose it as an art journal.

This book does not have especially heavy or interesting paper so I did coat the pages with acrylic matte medium before I started. I put it on thick with a big brush so the brush strokes would stay and give the pages some additional texture.

I used Liquitex Ink! in Prussian blue and Carbon Black for making my background. ink+water=lovely visual texture. I use old eye drops bottle full of water and a water brush to control where the ink runs.

I also used my white Molotow paint pen to outline the woman and frame on the right page. Then since I am horrible to draw people I chose to photo copy several of my photographs on to tracing paper (see I am slightly obsessed with the tracing paper). All are photos I took while staying with my Sister and Nephew, 2 of the photos are of reflections of us. I chose these intentionally because when copied on to the tracing paper they looked very shadowy and indistinct.

Here you can see the original photo on the bottom and the copy on the top.

I also chose a typical Amanda shop window selfie. Taken in the window of the Swarovski crystal shop thus the hanging strands of crystals.

One of the things that I love about copying/printing on the tracing paper is you can see the image through both sides of the paper. So often if you want the color or contrast less intense or to fit the flow of the page you need the mirror image of the photo you have chosen. All you have to do is flip the tracing paper over and adhere it face down. which is what I chose to do with this image. however before doing so I did trace my outline with a white colored pencil:

Then I added journaling on top.

For the left hand page I labeled and dated the left side of the page. Then I did some more personal journalling in red underneath. I then layered on the 2 photos and added more journaling on top. I choose this photo of my nephew reaching for me because he and I still have the same wonderful relationship. But sadly my sister and I do not.

Below is the fill finished spread with the tools that I used to make it:

I am going to be sharing this spread with my Sister as well. Maybe art will be able to tell her what I have not been able to any other way. That is one of the wonderful things art can do.

So I heard about the Get Messy Art Journal Challenge from one of my great Instagram Art Journal friends and had to check it out. I am so glad I did! 😀 you should check it out here: http://getmessyartjournal.cayleegrey.com/about/ I decided to join the group, both the prompts and tutorials have been great so far!

For my first warm up I used the free printable I got from them. I used it for the dust cover for the little book I am going to use as my dedicated get messy art journal.

Here is what the dust cover looked like before I started:

As the first set of Get Messy prompts are going to be Love themed I thought the book title was appropriate.

Used my favorite color of Liquitex Ink! Deep Violet and a sponge Daubers to swirl it around.

I also decided to integrate this weeks challenge 5-Using Washi Tape in ways I normally don’t into this cover. So I used Washi tape to cover up the words that I did not want as part of my finished cover.

used my blue Sharpie Stained maker to draw squiggly lines up from the pages then a water brush to spread it around.

I printed my free printable on to tracing paper (something I am slightly obsessed with in my art journal). I did several different sizes since my tracing paper is legal size and I did not know what size I wanted to use. One of the things I love about printing/copying on to tracing paper is it is so easy to see how it layers with your existing page. I tried a few possibilitys before deciding what size to use:

I finally decided to cut it apart and make it follow the flow of the book pages:

I also decided to use one of my other favorite techniques for this cover. Embossed aluminum foil. Which my brilliant Mom found is awesome to make in the SIZZIX machine with an embossing folder. This one is mad with the aluminum top of a disposable foil pan lid.

I cut out one of the clocks and put it in the center on the bottom.

After taking a break and coming back to it I decided I did not like the melony color on the top so I used more of the deep violet to cover it.

For the back cover I used more of the Liquitex Ink! in cerulean blue and quinacridone magenta on the back cover swirled with my sponge dauber. but the magenta turned out a bit muddy after it dried so I covered most of it with more deep violet.

I love all the different textures you can get with the sponge dauber here are some detail shots:

Then I broke out my white Molotow paint pen and did some lettering

Decided to cover the back cover of my with #’s written cursive. I am totally loving the how the white Molotow pen pops on the swirly ink background.

I decided to use the largest version of the printable on the back over the top of the # words. I used washi tape to attach the tracing paper by the corners. Instead of just gluing it down like I normally would.

Finished dust jacket:

Here it is on my new little art journal. I think I might touch up the text a bit but over all I am very happy with it: